Customer Reviews

The Interpretation of Fairy Tales

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I want to second the good review already written and add that the thing about Marie-Louise von Franz is her great readability compared with most of Jung, who can at times be very obtuse. All of von Franz's fairy tale studies are valuable and useful, but for the beginning searcher, this IS a good place to start. Von Franz, "the greatest living heir to C.G. Jung," is down-to-earth in her writing, and her examples of interpretations are always crystal clear and practical. She IS a Jungian, but for her Jung is just a tool that she uses -- she is no slave to a method. She freely admits that any interpretation is just one of many possible ones one might make. Beware! If you like this book and find it useful, you will want to read ALL of her other books.

M.L. von Franz was one of Jung's closest associates and is proclaimed by some to be his intellectual heir. She was a language specialist, in particular ancient languages, and worked with Jung from her early twenties until his death.

Von Franz has the knack of going to the essence of Jungian theory without some of the circumlocution that so many complain of in Jung's collected works. Fairy tales were her forte and she believed by analyzing fairy tales in terms of their collective, not their personal meaning, one would connect with the wisdom of the collective.

This books provides step-by-step instructions for doing fairy tale analysis according to the method of mythological amplification. She also provides examples of her own analysis of fairy tales.

Von Franz believes that all fairy tales are describing one psychic fact--that of the Self. (The Jungian Self includes both the individual self and the collective unconscious). The Self has so much complexity and variation that many different tales are necessary to describe it.

This is an important book that describes some of the basic tenets of Jungian psychology in an easy-to-read form. It is one I return to over and over in my exploration of symbolic material.

This book by marie-Luise Von Franz provides valuable insight into the varied uses of a Jungain approach to psychology. Interpreting fairy tales provides us with skills and techniques to help interpret our own fairy tales, that of our dreams and life stories. Useful for all students of Jung and applicable in our own lives if only for the joy of seeking connections and associations in our own experiences. Ideal for dreamers and philosophers as well as beginner Jungians.

I've read a number of ML von Franz's interpretations of fairy tales and I've found them all invaluable. While, as ML von Franz states herself, you don't have to agree with every breakdown or rely upon her interpretations as the absolute truth, the stances she takes are fascinating and offer another view of reality, specifically a window into another way of understanding a great deal of our literary past.

This particular book works as a strong introductory text to the work that Marie-Louise von Franz has done in her break down of fairy tales.

Marie-Louise von Franz is considered by many to be the heir of C.G. Jung. She's written a number of books on dreams, synchronicity, myths, alchemy and here, the interpretation of fairy tales. Although it took me perhaps 50 pages to get used to her writing style, which is a bit bombastic at times, her analysis is thorough and thought-provoking. Her insights are backed up by a lifetime of scholarship and research. I found my own understanding of folk and fairy tale symbols, themes and motifs significantly enlarged and deepened. I won't read the old tales the same way again. My only criticism is that her brief discussion of the 'animus' seemed like a foot-note to the book-long examination of the 'anima' and the 'shadow.' This weights the work in favor of the male psyche and I would have liked more examples and more discussion of the female psyche. Having said that, her analysis of The Three Feathers, Prince Ring and several other tales are terrific. Recommended.

goes behind the everyday view of common things. Long story short, the Jungians think that primitive peoples were "projecting" their own internal states into these stories and thus by dissecting them they reveal insight to problems common to us all. I would recommend her "Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairytales". I would go so far as to suggest that we each have our own fairy tales (our own story) that may bear little resemblance to onlookers. And it is important to keep working on our own story, keep developing it, keep growing and expanding it. Maybe even wind in a princess, a frog, and some elves... Maybe not. When I look back as far as I can see I always tried to wind in God to my story and that story has changed in some ways drastically over time, yet somehow the parts that matter (the interface) seems to stay largely the same. But its important to me that the story goes on. The Gospel According to Me: A heretic finds his way in modernity using Jungian psychology, science, dreams, and, well, the Gospels